Punk is one of the most fiercely debated post-war subcultures. Despite the attention surrounding the movement’s origins, analyses of punk have been drawn predominantly from a now well-trodden historical narrative. This simplification of punk’s histories erases its breadth and vibrancy, leaving out bands from Crass to The Subhumans who took the call for anarchy in the UK seriously.

Disillusioned by the commercialization of punk, the anarcho-punk scene fought against dependence on large record labels. Anarcho-punk re-ignited the punk ethos, including a return to an ‘anyone-can-do-it’ culture of music production and performance. Anarcho-punk encouraged focused political debate and self-organised subversive activities, from a heightened awareness to issues of personal freedom and animal rights to the development of local cooperatives where musicians, artists and like-minded people could meet.

The anarcho-punk movement helped to reignite a serious anarchist movement in the UK and inspired actions challenging the Thatcher-Reagan axis. The Aesthetic of our Anger explores the development of the anarcho-punk scene from the late 1970s, raising questions over the origins of the scene, its form, structure and cultural significance, examining how anarcho-punk moved away from using ‘anarchy’ as mere connotation and shock value towards an approach that served to make punk a threat again.

Minor Composition’s approach to the practice of open access electronic publishing is explained in the prelim pages of the book:

This book is open access. This work is not simply an electronic book; it is the open access version of a work that exists in a number of forms, the traditional printed form being one of them. All Minor Compositions publications are placed for free, in their entirety, on the web. This is because the free and autonomous sharing of knowledge and experiences is important, especially at a time when the restructuring and increased centralization of book distribution makes it difficult (and expensive) to distribute radical texts effectively. The free posting of these texts does not mean that the necessary energy and labor to produce them is no longer there. One can think of buying physical copies not as the purchase of commodities, but as a form of support or solidarity for an approach to knowledge production and engaged research (particularly when purchasing directly from the publisher).

The open access nature of this publication means that you can:

• read and store this document free of charge
• distribute it for personal use free of charge
• print sections of the work for personal use
• read or perform parts of the work in a context where no financial transactions take place

However, it is against the purposes of Minor Compositions open access approach to:

• gain financially from the work
• sell the work or seek monies in relation to the distribution of the work
• use the work in any commercial activity of any kind
• profit a third party indirectly via use or distribution of the work
• distribute in or through a commercial body (with the exception of academic usage within educational institutions)

The intent of Minor Compositions as a project is that any surpluses generated from the use of collectively produced literature are intended to return to further the development and production of further publications and writing: that which comes from the commons will be used to keep cultivating those commons. Omnia sunt communia!

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The PDF you are reading is an electronic version of a physical book that can be purchased through booksellers (including online stores), through the normal book supply channels, or Minor Compositions directly. Please support this open access publication by requesting that your university or local library purchase a physical printed copy of this book, or by purchasing a copy yourself.

Some of us Scream

Rich Cross. 2016. '"Why do you think that they are laughing?", in Greg Bull and Mike Dines (eds.), 'Some of Us Scream Some of Us Shout': Myths, Folklore and Epic Tales of the Anarcho, (Itchy Monkey Press) [ Buy from Active Distribution or Situation Press ]

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